Skip to main content

The Madlanga Commission could significantly improve Public Administration.

Published in TimesLive 02 October 2025

Once South Africa begins to understand the chasm that separates policing’s insiders from outsiders, it can start to appreciate the need to design the normative bridges necessary to address criminality in all its forms. The Madlanga Commission is beginning to reveal systemic governance dysfunctions not limited to the South African Police Service. So far, the submissions to the commission have demonstrated an abstraction of a larger issue. 

General Mkhwanazi’s historic media conference appears to have been a bureaucratic retaliation against the complex infiltration of the criminal justice system. Those targeted were criminal syndicates and certain political, cognitive legal, and criminal justice system elites and operatives. 

 

Central to the resistance is testing the extent to which police officers and the public service in general can, without repercussions, survive if they refuse to obey unlawful orders from executive authorities. Secondly, and more profoundly, it concerns the ability of public service members appointed based on policy considerations to continue acting with impunity within a rules-based constitutional order. 

 

Besides issues like the Political Killings Task Team, the South African public administration system—grounded on principles that define its normative obligations—is under scrutiny. One such principle, enshrined in the Constitution, is that the public service should loyally implement the current government’s lawful policies (orders). These principles generally presume an executive authority system that functions with integrity and upholds the normative principles outlined in the constitution.

 

In his submission to the Madlanga Commission, Lt General Mkhwanazi provided evidence highlighting the practice and discipline of Public Administration in ways few or no classroom discussions could demonstrate. While the public concern that prompted the enquiry is corruption in the police service, the General’s testimony also emphasised the troubling issues faced by those in the public administration system regarding how they handle the execution of unlawful orders by executive authorities. 

 

When the General revealed how he requested former Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa to excuse him as Acting National Commissioner because he would not carry out what he then regarded as an unlawful order, this was a subtle act of conscientious public service that went largely unnoticed.

 

The focus might be on the Police, but this context characterises the public service across all spheres of government. The July six courage of the General makes the difference; otherwise, executive authority overreach has been the unfortunate norm for some time, and it is not unique to South Africa but universal. 


Under similar circumstances raised at the Madlanga Commission, the careers of individuals in public service, private enterprises operating within the public sector, and qualified persons’ professional reputations have been shattered. Executive overreach has undermined the standard of government decisions, particularly in areas where professional judgment should take precedence. This issue is especially severe in engineering, criminal justice, health, and public education. 


The overreach of executive authority and its complicity in the unfortunate and catastrophic decline of normative state governance at the expense of arbitrary and prerogative executive decisions mark the culmination of years of erosion of a rule-based public administration system envisaged by the constitutional order. 


It would shock the country to learn how much the state has spent on legal fees defending the arbitrary decisions of executive authorities against appointed officials who refused to execute unlawful orders. The queues of incomplete disciplinary hearing files, missing evidence dockets, unpaid invoices by service providers, wrongful arrests, and criminal withdrawals indicate how arbitrary decisions by executive authorities have clogged the administration. 


Suppose the nine wasted theory holds, and the Zondo Commission’s findings remain unreviewed. President Ramaphosa continues to be unchallenged, the ANC is accused of being the primary culprit in the document, and General Mkhwanazi’s submissions remain uncontested. In that case, the disintegration of the public administration system due to executive overreach might have normalised the idea that anything is permissible in the pursuit of the arbitrary or prerogative whims of those in power. 

 

Due to its close ties with certain executive authorities, the criminal underworld adopts ethos, strategies, and tactics from overreach frameworks to evade accountability. Unfortunately, this is often supported by an otherwise compromised political party system. Political parties, as the source of individuals who eventually become executive authorities, have, along with the sealed CR2017 funding records, which remain unopened evidence, become inexpensive to buy and easy to manipulate. 


Unless a dedicated and constant review and challenge of the established practice of executive authority overreach is specifically mandated, the resulting conventions can develop into habits that may be difficult to change. Societies that admit mistakes, recognise that they might have lacked proper theories underpinning their experiments, and act quickly to correct course, tend to emerge as significant winners. The Madlanga Commission should assist in finalising an otherwise comprehensive ongoing public service reform, which may have been hindered by unchecked executive overreach. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Farewell, Comrade Bra Squire, a larger-than-life figure in our memories: LITERALLY OR OTHERWISE

It’s not the reality of Cde Squire's passing that makes us feel this way. It is the lens we are going to use to get to grips with life without him that we should contend with. A literally larger-than-life individual who had one of the most stable and rarest internal loci of control has left us. The thief that death is has struck again.  Reading the notice with his picture on it made me feel like I could ask him, "O ya kae grootman, re sa go nyaka hierso." In that moment, I also heard him say, "My Bla, mfanakithi, comrade lucky, ere ko khutsa, mmele ga o sa kgona." The dialogue with him without him, and the solace of the private conversations we had, made me agree with his unfair expectation for me to say, vaya ncah my grootman.    The news of his passing brought to bear the truism that death shows us what is buried in us, the living. In his absence, his life will be known by those who never had the privilege of simply hearing him say 'heita bla' as...
2 comments
Read more

Sergeant Nkosi might be a tip of the iceberg.

When the evidence leader and the commissioners at the Madlanga Commission were delayering Sergeant Nkosi's evidence, it became clear that the depth or state of capture was vast. In the late Minister Gordhan's parlance, the Nkosi testimony highlights critical insights into systemic corruption, making it highly relevant for policymakers and legal professionals concerned with governance.  It has been both a rumour and an "open secret" that "the industry" was in charge of several state organs and, by extension, procurement decisions. These rumours had pathways that passed through several figures but converged on some of the individuals mentioned by Sergeant Nkosi. The network included runners whose reach extended to persons of significant influence across political parties and within party factions.  The name of 'Mswazi' was legendary in crime circles. His influence extended beyond the underworld, impacting political power and economic control. Recognisi...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Life of Laughter: A Tribute to Simon Mampana, “See” or “C Lebuka”

The interval between birth and death is brief, yet within it we can become sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends, classmates, and colleagues—and, through the lives we touch, shape a legacy. In his own interval, Simon Mampana—whom we knew affectionately as “See” or “C Lebuka”—became all these things and more. I first knew him as a classmate, the captain of our first softball team, and a school-break comedian of rare and unforgettable talent. We met at Tsako Thabo High School. Few who passed through its grounds could deny that Simon was their friend. We all knew him well, yet his warmth reached far beyond any single circle. He could be the quiet shadow beside you or the generous tree beneath which everyone gathered—to rest, to laugh and, sometimes, to climb. However, as See entered your life, he left something of himself behind. His passing matters because the way he lived among us reveals who he was, not only to his schoolmates, but to the wider Mamelodi community. As Simon ...
2 comments
Read more